“Forgive me,” Selena said as she tried to swallow another yawn, her eyes watering from fatigue and cold. “I was lately living in a village near Bedford where my mother has a small property. Lady Harrowden is my father’s second cousin, so it is not a very close relationship but enough to claim a connection and be of service to her.”

“Have you never had a London Season then? Why hide yourself away in a role where you are likely to be little more than a drudge? You cannot be more than twenty.”

“I am three and twenty,” she replied after a brief hesitation. Wasn’t the answer obvious to him? “When my father died, his estate passed over to my cousin, who…” Selena stopped short as a series of memories flashed before her “…who did not require any advisement on the running of his estate,” she finished. Selena pressed her lips together. “So we soon found ourselves new lodgings. It only made sense that I would not remain a charge upon my mother, and she remembered this connection, the end result being that I am here.”

“Hm.” Sir Lucius frowned, and when at last he did speak it was only to say, “Don’t let her frighten you. Lady Harrowden is known for her sharp tongue.”

Selena pulled the blanket more securely around her shoulders. “Well, I should not think she can eat me.”

This brought forth a smile from her transitory benefactor, and they did not speak many more words before they pulled up in front of the Harrowden residence. It was not extremely large as far as estates went, but it was three times the size of Sir Lucius’s house. The carriage wheels were muffled in the snow as they drove along the path that led to the front stairs, and Selena’s tremors of cold turned to trepidation. If she could not find her place here, she did not know where else she could go.

Lucius hopped down from the carriage and handed the reins to Finn so he could help Miss Lockhart alight. With the blankets discarded in the carriage, the slender woman shivered at his side, and he knew a strange impulse to put his arm around her and shield her from the worst of the wind. He settled for offering his arm as they climbed the steps. The door opened shortly after the sound of the knocker ceased to echo.

"Good evening, Mullings,” Lucius said. “I believe Lady Harrowden is expecting Miss Lockhart this evening. Her stagecoach had a run-in near my hunting box. It is most likely still there with her trunk attached to it, if the drivers have not been able to pull the coach out of the rut. We came by the back roads.”

The butler stepped aside to let them in. “Indeed, sir. One of the footmen had already gone to fetch her at the posting inn and has come back. The inn had no knowledge of why the stagecoach was delayed. If you will wait here inside where it’s warm, I will make Lady Harrowden aware of the young lady’s presence."